MoSPendantConstruction

October 2, 2006:

I am currently making a replica of the Mouth of Sauron's Pendant, as seen in The Lord of the Rings, Return of the King. I'm crafting it out of precious metal clay silver, for my friend, Inkibus... who is currently at work on the complete Mouth of Sauron costume.

On the left is a rare photo of the pendant I will be recreating. On the right is my sketch and design concept of how I'll go about making it in silver clay... My idea is to make it into a helmet, filling in the blanks, so to speak.

Today I started skulpting the pendant in clay. It is still rough, and after the piece dries, I will continue skulpting with files, and adding more silver clay in filigree. Here are some photos of it as it is drying. Along with the main piece, I have shaped two skull beads that will attach to the hanging cording going through the pendant... They will also be refined with filing...

After some drying, I started the filing process... Here is how things looked after about an hour of filing...

More filing later, and then the first firing. It has not been buffed out too much yet, as I'll need to fire again for slips in the back to hold the cord...

This first photo here, the left skull has been fired. You can see how it shrinks by maybe 10 % ...

Next, I will make the cording out of black cotton crochet thread with silver metalic thread braided in... I will make a chain stitched cord.

October 5, 2006:

Photos of the cording, displayed upon my dear Severus... ;)

I made the cord by first chain stitching the very thin silver metalic thread. It turned the thread into a very spider-web-like chain, delicate and beautiful. Then, I combined this chained silver thread to a black cotton crochet thread, size ten, and chain stitched again. This was the result. :D

I have also buffed out the pieces... and will go take some photos before I start oxidizing...